News of the week

SIM Swapper Arrested with Charges of Stealing Crypto from Phones

The police department with the help of Santa Clara County’s “REACT task force” caught a crypto-thief in California, US. Allegedly, Xzavyer Clemente Narvaez was swapping SIMs from victims’ phones to receive their messages and calls. Narvaez used this technique to transfer money to himself. Authorities are sure that the hijacker stole more than $1 million in virtual currencies and had purchased luxury items and a McLaren sports car that cost $200,000.

North Korean Hackers Got into Crypto Exchange by Using First macOs Malware

Russian digital security company Kaspersky reported that for the first time North Korea hacked into a cryptocurrency exchange using macOs malware named “AppleJeus”. The so-called Lazarus group created a software development company with a fraudulent app and fake security certificates. This infected app was downloaded by the exchange’s employee. The tainted software is aiming to steal cryptocurrency funds, while North Korea continues to execute different hacking attempts in crypto space.

Chinese financial regulators want to cut off up to 124 foreign exchanges with overseas IP addresses from domestic investors. The People’s Bank of China had already initial coin offerings (ICOs) and crypto platforms in 2017 and now the government seeks to monitor any commercial use of cryptocurrency and to block internet access to these trading platforms.

Toshihide Endo, Japan’s commissioner of the Financial Services Agency (FSA), in an interview with Reuters said that the agency wants the cryptocurrency to “grow under appropriate regulation”. FSA is searching a balance between the innovative industry and consumer protection. The commissioner added that they “have no intention to curb [the crypto industry] excessively”.

The Division of Consumer and Business Education published an article which is aimed to help to avoid blackmail scams. “New scam targeting men,” demanding payments in Bitcoin (BTC) in exchange for keeping quiet about alleged affairs. FTC says that the scam uses all classic instruments of blackmailing and advises to “report it immediately to your local police and the FBI”.